I shall endure the risk whatever it be ... shall I proceed?
We have no power to stop you....
No my lord, was the reply of the prisoner. I could not oblige them to appear; and they would not appear. How came you by the property? said his lordship. It was left with me by a man who stopped at my house; he wanted a little money to carry him to see a sick wife ... and as I did not know him, he left this property in pledge. Who was that man? I do not know my lord, I never saw him before ... but one of my neighbors in the same trade with me knew him, and if you had him here, he would say so.
Judges, you have now heard my story. You know what I was prepared to see; you know what I expected. Here was a man who, for aught we know, told the truth. But he had no witnesses—he had no power to make them testify—he had no refuge—no hope—the law was a snare to him—the law of our mother-country.
How so pray?
Property being found in his possession—property which had been stolen, he was to suffer, because—mark what I say, I beseech you—because he could not prove his innocence!
Tut—tut—tut—rigmarole! said the prosecutor.
Rigmarole Sir—what I say is the simple truth. Hear me through. The moment that poor fellow was found with the property in his possession, he was concluded by the law and by the judges of the law to be guilty; and they called upon him to prove that he was not guilty—
Nature of things, my good brother—
Well—and if it is the nature of things, why deny the existence of the fact? Why do you, as all men of the law have done for ages and still do—why say over and over again every day of your lives, that it is the characteristic of the law, that law of which you are the expounders, to regard every man as innocent, until he be proved to be guilty? Why not say the truth? Why quibble with rhetoric? Why not say that where a man is charged with a crime, you are, in the very nature of things, under the necessity of taking that for proof which is not proof? Look you Sir—how came you by the coat you wear? Suppose I were to challenge that cloth and put you to the proof, how could you prove that you purchased it fairly of a fair trader?